Community Action, Mental Health Dept. team up to educate families where drugs may be hidden

ALBION – Community Action of Orleans and Genesee is teaming up with Orleans County Mental Health in “Hidden Mischief,” a program being promoted by UConnectCare (formerly GCASA) to inform individuals, especially parents, where children or others might hide drugs and how to find them.

Community Action became aware of the program after Community Action’s director Renee Hungerford met Danielle Figura, director of the Orleans County Mental Health Department,at a meeting of Leadership Orleans, where the program was demonstrated.

Orleans Mental Health offered grants to implement Hidden Mischief and Community Action applied for and was approved for one.

How it works, according to Hungerford, is a bedroom is set up with drugs hidden in the room. Individuals are given a sheet on which to document the forbidden items and where they found them.

“It is important for parents to know this,” said Jeanette Worsley, case manager at Community Action. “Things can be hidden in the strap of a hoodie or in plain sight.”

Jackie Dunham, chief operating officer at Community Action, was given the task of making the program happen, Hungerford said. Dunham said they partnered with Marty Taber with the ACTS Program, and Cassie Healy, manager of Community Action’s Main Street Store, who is the instructor of Community Action’s Credit Recovery Program at Albion High School.

“We are working with the school districts now to see who will participate,” Dunham said. “We hope to get as many of the county’s five schools to participate as possible.”

Part of the program is talking about the differences between mental health and substance abuse, Worsley said.

“This is truly about making all sorts of good choices,” Worsley added. “With Marty and Cassie’s connection with the school districts, I think this is going to be successful.”

They hope to be ready to implement the program by mid-March and will announce the time and location and how to register by the end of the month.

“An important part of the program is to make available test strips for Xylazine and Fentanyl,” Hungerford said. “They just have to ask, no questions asked.”

She stressed how dangerous those drugs are and how prevalent in our society.

Healy said she already has the test strips at the Main Street Store and they are free to anyone who comes in and asks.